Thursday, February 16, 2017

eBay Co-Founder Plans to Give Thousands of Kenyans Free Income for 12 Years

From TIME magazine:

Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire co-founder of eBay,
plans to donate approximately $500,000 to fund a project in Kenya that
will give thousands of people a guaranteed regular income.

The program, called, GiveDirectly
is being hailed as the most ambitious experiment yet in the concept of
universal basic income, or UBI. It will make cash transfers to more than
26,000 people in 200 villages in Kenya, with about 6,000 of those
people receiving a long-term basic income for 12 years. The payments of
$0.75 per day amount to 50% of typical adult income in rural Kenya.

The
concept of a universal basic income has been gaining traction around
the world as a way to equitably increase quality of life in a world
where labor markets are being disrupted. The policy was recently the
subject of a nationwide referendum in Switzerland—it didn't pass—and it's also being discussed in European countries, Canada, and the city of Oakland, to name a few.

The
basic idea: Give people a strings-free weekly, monthly or yearly
stipend, enough so that their basic needs are taken care of, whether
they work or not.

"Cash
transfer programs can potentially help to address bigger issues facing
our society, such as rising income volatility, lack of secure benefits,
social instability, and the changing nature of work," reps for the
Omidyar Network wrote in a Medium post.

"Concerns
around these themes have recently sparked growing attention to a
particular form of cash transfer: the idea of universal basic income
(UBI) — a transfer that would be regular, long-term, a meaningful
amount, and available to everyone."...MORE